In 2018, the cost of feeding a child at school for a whole year is still a snip at just £13.90. Mary's Meals is now providing school meals to well over a million children, in some of the world's poorest communities. As seen in the window of a cafe in Lilongwe, Malawi:
"If you think education is expensive - try ignorance."
WWW.MARYSMEALS.ORG.UK

Labels

Pages

Sunday, 14 February 2016

Marina L: “He started to lose his
hair, andwhen I came to see him it was
exactly what you saw in the picture in the newspaper.

This
famous photograph was taken on Tuesday 21st November. Watson doesn’t
refer to it, but equally well-known was the ‘deathbed statement’, signed by Mr
Litvinenko on the same day, and discussed at some length in Sir Robert Owen’s
report (3.143).Here
is the full text:

“I would like to thank many
people. My doctors, nurses and hospital staff who are doing all they can for
me; the British Police who are pursuing my case with rigour and professionalism
and are watching over me and my family. I would like to thank the British
Government for taking me under their care. I am honoured to be a British
citizen.

I would like to thank the
British public for their messages of support and for the interest they have
shown in my plight.

I thank my wife, Marina, who
has stood by me. My love for her and our son knows no bounds.

But as I lie here I can
distinctly hear the beating of wings of the angel of death. I may be able to
give him the slip but I have to say my legs do not run as fast as I would like.
I think, therefore, that this may be the time to say one or two things to the
person responsible for my present condition.

You may succeed in silencing me
but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric
and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed.

You have shown yourself to have
no respect for life, liberty or any civilised value.

You have shown yourself to be
unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilised men and
women.

You may succeed in silencing
one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr
Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life. May God forgive you for what you
have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people.”

The statement was signed in
manuscript by Mr Litvinenko, and dated 21 November 2006.”

Litvinenko’s
conviction that Putin had ordered his death was genuine. However it reflected a
somewhat inflated sense of his own importance, and did not in any case fulfil
most people’s criteria for rationality. The following excerpt from an article
by Boris Volodarsky, ‘Alexander Litvinenko: A very Russian poisoning’, which
appeared in the Telegraph on 2nd December 2009, helps to illustrate Litvinenko’s
predilection for wildly overblown rhetoric:

“On October 7, 2006, news came
from Moscow announcing the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. Sasha [Alexander] showed
no hesitation in pointing the finger at the man he believed responsible. 'Only
one person in Russia could kill a journalist of her standing, only one person
could sanction her death,’ he told an audience at Paddington’s Frontline Club.
‘And this person is Putin.’”

With
all due respect – what is Litvinenko talking about? Anna Politkovskaya was an
unprotected woman in a very big city with a fairly high crime rate, who had
devoted much of her working life to documenting the situation in Chechnya. No
doubt Litvinenko suspected Putin – he may very well also have wanted to believe it was Putin. However,
the categorical terms of his accusation border on the infantile. A member of
the audience at the Frontline Club that day was Vladimir Bukovsky, another well-known Soviet
dissident. Owen’s report lends weight to the idea that Litvinenko was sometimes
given to adolescent modes of behaviour, when it says at 3.109:

“Mrs Litvinenko described Mr
Bukovsky as Mr Litvinenko’s “guru”, and the “greatest contact” that he had. Mr
Bukovsky said that he talked to Mr Litvinenko about the history of KGB
repression during the twentieth century, of which Mr Litvinenko had previously
been unaware. He said that Mr Litvinenko would sometimes telephone him “20, 30
times a day, including the night time” and that Mr Litvinenko also travelled to
see him at his home.”

Allowing
for Russians’ propensity to exaggerate, and assuming therefore that in reality
this was more like 10 or 20 times a day, including the night time –this still is not normal adult
behaviour. The deathbed statement too is almost childishly polemical, though
the idea for it did not solely originate from, and nor was it written by,
Alexander Litvinenko. Having been drafted in English by Litvinenko’s solicitor George
Menzies, it was principally the work of Menzies and Alex Goldfarb, who
testified…

“…that the idea had emerged
“naturally”, “between me and George Menzies and Sasha [Litvinenko]”, because Mr
Litvinenko “was so adamant in trying to get across the message that the Kremlin
and Putin poisoned him”.

Goldfarb
and Menzies ran the statement past Lord Tim Bell, Berezovsky’s PR guru, who
said he was initially opposed, but then came round to the idea. All of which
gives this paragraph in Owen’s report (3.144) the feel almost of the script for
a comedy sketch:

“Doubts have been expressed as
to the authenticity of [the deathbed] statement, or at least as to the extent
to which it represented Mr Litvinenko’s views. I therefore took detailed
evidence on this subject. The key witnesses, who all gave oral evidence,
were George Menzies, Mr Goldfarb, Marina Litvinenko and Lord
Bell.”[my
emphasis]

One
might as well ask the people behind Berezovsky’s T-shirt to give their views on
the extent to which Andrei Lugovoy was responsible for its design.

About Me

Hi, I'm James Bruce, a 41 year old chap from Bristol in England. I set off on 22 March 2013 from Blantyre, Scotland, with the aim of reaching Blantyre, Malawi, with God's help. I am raising money for Mary's Meals, the non-denominational charity that feeds children worldwide and helps them gain an education. I paid for all my expenses myself, thanks to a legacy from my late grandfather. If you would like to donate please call call 0800 698 1212 or visit www.marysmeals.org.uk.
I hope you will accompany me on this journey from wherever you are! God bless, James